(Published in the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 20, 2008, Sunday)
By Roel Andag
Contributor
Know your fuel
WHAT MAKES YOU GO to work everyday? Your honest answer to this question describes your motivation to work. No one reports to the office without a motive. Compensation, bonuses, paid vacations, car plan, awe-inspiring job title, overseas travel, power over resources, power outfits, free Internet, free coffee, cool friends, cool office – whatever it is, your motivation is the force that draws you to the office day after day. That force lies within you regardless if you are unconscious about it.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs suggests that a person is spurred to address the different levels of needs – ranging from basic to the complex. It is a useful tool in identifying motivations.
Working to survive
You are driven by the urge to survive. You go to work because you need to put food on the table. No matter how numbing or revolting your work situation, you force yourself to report day after precarious day. You barely live to see the next payday. And the pay is just enough to cover food, rent, utilities and the children’s education.
Because inflation and increasing consumption are gnawing at your stagnant income, occasional bonuses and incentives are blissful lifeline extensions. You tend to explore alternative sources of income to tide you over. Work becomes a source of discontentment when pay is low or perennially delayed.
Working to feel safe
You value stability and predictability. That is why you are saving money for a comfortable future. You will use the money to buy a house in a decent neighborhood. You go to the office because your work provides a measure of financial assurance that helps you fulfill such goals. You are comforted by the fact that your company has health insurance and pension plans in place. The company car is a welcome convenience.
You ignore work-related dissatisfactions. You have job security after all. Your work is a safety net in an unpredictable world. Besides, it’s your future that’s at stake here.
This type of motivation is challenged when threats such as mergers and other such change-intensive developments occur.
Working to belong
You are affirmed by associations. By virtue of being employed, you belong to various groups – your company, your clique within the company, and industry associations. The more prestigious the company, the prouder you are. You relish the reaction of friends, relatives and strangers when you tell them where you work. You pack in the wow factor. And the more perks attached to your position, the more ‘in’ you feel.
You exert your best effort so as to gain access to exclusive brotherhoods, the millionaire’s club for example. A condo unit will simply not do for you. It has to be a house in an exclusive village. The acceptance of peers is important to you. Your work is your source of upward mobility and identity. It lets you purchase the trappings that make you feel you belong.
It becomes frustrating to work when the resources it provides can no longer cope with your peer-pressured lifestyle.
Working for esteem
You thirst for recognition. Your efforts are acknowledged, valued and rewarded at work. The office is one of the places or the only place where you feel you get the respect you deserve. You thrive on accolades from coworkers and are nourished by industry recognitions. Your work is your ticket to glory. Every day spent in the office is a day invested in boosting esteem.
It is in the office where you feel most confident and self-assured. Consumed with the desire to merit attention by management or the people whose opinion you value, you either raise the bar of performance or resort to dirty tricks, to the consternation of colleagues. You equate achievement with nonstop praise.
Work stops fueling your drive when you feel overlooked or when you commit an ego-busting failure.
Working for fulfillment
You desire to fulfill your potential. You look forward each workday because your work allows you to do what you know you can do. It allows you to express yourself fully and helps you achieve your peak. It provides opportunities for your continued growth and development.
Your personal vision and principles match those of the company. Your work brings out your ideal state. It gives you space to be honest with yourself, to shed off your pretensions and resistance. Functioning optimally while deriving authentic enjoyment from it, your work ceases to be work. It becomes a vehicle that lets you implement through ethical means what you believe is your mission in life. Your empowerment lets you empower others.
Personal struggles and company upheavals will impair this kind of motivation.
Motivation and career success
In career parlance, motivation can be defined as what the worker perceives work can do for him so that he reciprocates with a corresponding level of performance. Motivation is life-defining because it is the prism through which we view work. Motivation influences decision-making. Consciously or not, there is always an interest to protect, an agenda to push. Your definition of success hinges on your motivation.
Debates continue to plumb the wisdom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, particularly on the assertion that, in the real world, it is not rigid in its progression. There are other theories that are available in analyzing motivation.
Just the same, regardless of framework of analysis, one thing can be said about motivation: it is your fuel. When you feel burned out, it means your motivation is no longer serving its purpose. Don’t wait until you run on empty.
